"Your mana pool can be improved with training and a fair warning, I will not allow you to use any petty magic focuses. Those will weaken your natural connection to magic, and you'll be useless the moment it disappears."

Michael suddenly looks downtrodden.

"What about magical items?"

"They're allowed but nothing to increase your natural powers with artificial ways, there is no shortcut to strength, unless you are a lucky fool. But meeting me is a form of luck as well, I guess."

Michael heaves a sigh of relief. He really enjoyed magical item tinkering and creation. Despite not being talented, he fell in love with the craft, the moment he learned it.

"And in the future, I will personally teach you the proper art to crafting as well"

Michael suddenly gets excited, but he calms himself, after all Demiurge seems to be a calm and patient teacher, no use in annoying him or getting on his bad side.

"The first thing you need to learn is the basics. You chose to learn fire and ice, a good combination of offence and defense, but the spells you learned were the utmost lowest of levels. Those teachers might be giving you defective spells so you encounter mana disruption."

"Mana disruption? I read about that, it means my mana pool becomes too impure and there is a possibility that it gets destroyed."

"Yes, these spells are not only inefficient but is slowly damaging your mana pool, that's why you have that 2% mana impurity. How long have you been practicing these spells?"

"3 years."

Demiurge goes quiet.

"That's impossible, if so that means your mana impurity should be at least 80% or worse, you should have already encountered mana disruption."

Demiurge's voice is slightly surprised but he calms down and immediately Michael.

"How have you been training your magic?"

"Well like normal, as written in the books and taught by the professors. I compared the knowledge taught by my professors and those written in the books, I tried to make a new way to meditate through trial and error. I slowly removed the errors written in the books and those told by my professors, but the books were too low class and my professors weren't too impressive either."

"Show me your meditation method."

Michael cleans his dirty bed of his tools and items. He sits on the center and slowly enters meditation, focusing on his own method, a method he created through trial and error. Michael feels the familiar feeling of magic slowly entering his body, cleaning it, strengthening it, and making it better overall, but this time he feels Demiurge peering closely on his created formula.

The meditation lasts for 30 minutes, and eventually Michael finishes.

Demiurge is silent for a while, which makes Michael feel a little tense. 'Was it that bad?'

"A genius..."

"What?"

"It seems you aren't fully worthless after all."

Michael is a little confused by Demiurge, but thankfully he explains.

"Paragon was probably scraping the bottom of the barrel when he was handing magical talent to you, but... your magical theory is practically unmatched. You've created an almost perfect version of the basic meditation style. It's time-efficient and has no impurities, the only reason you have impure mana is due to the defective spells. And even then, due to your almost perfect meditation you've managed to offset the effects of the defective spells."

Out of all the things Demiurge could've said, this was good news. It meant that Michael wasn't completely worthless. It meant that all his work, especially the ones mocked by others, was not worthless. For the first time of his life, his goal, to enact revenge wasn't just a dream.

"But... theories are theories, it will help in the early stages but in the long run, your theories won't increase your power faster." Demiurge sighs "A shame, you would've been a once in a generation genius but you have bottom barrel trash."

"Oh.... Tsk... No use in crying over spoiled milk then! Tell me, what are the spells you'll teach me then?"

"The basics of the basic, a thousand times better than that worthless fire and ice formation spell. All spells originate from the divine and have only been emulated by us mortals. The spells I'm about to teach you are spells that were created by the first great red and the ice aeon"

"The great red and the ice aeon?"

"Yes, the first dragon and the primordial ice. The spells are called solar manipulation and void manipulation" Demiurge starts teaching Michael the basic spell components, the formula of magic creation and the proper timing of casting.

When Michael heard Demiurge's teaching, he was practically shivering with excitement. Demiurge wasn't lying when he said, those spells were trash. There's no way to compare the four spells, and yet these new spells are considered basic spells. The efficiency of mana usage, the power, and even the speed of casting is faster by a large margin.

"They are the most basic of spells but as you become more used to them and if your mana pool grows to be satisfactory, I'll teach you the stronger and higher spell versions of them."

Michael was memorizing the spell and he noticed while they were the pinnacle of basic spells, there were some small mistakes.

"Demiurge... there are some mistakes..."

"What? That's impossible. These are spells made by the first creatures, they shouldn't have any flaws."

'He's probably testing me.' Michael rolled his eyes as he insists.

"No, here let me show you it to you." Michael starts explaining the spells' mechanics to Demiurge.

Demiurge listens and he finds himself being surprised by Michael's explanation. And the even more surprising thing, was that Michael was explaning it in a way that young children could understand.

Demiurge can't help but laugh in the inside, it seems he really found a good catch this time.

"I see... those aren't mistakes... They're just incompatibilities. I've reviewed those spells thousands of times, not counting the times I've taught them to other hosts. This is considered perfect for those creatures but the spell has some small incompatibilities with humans, since they came from mythical creatures.... you're the first to ever bring this up to me and... I've never noticed this before."

"What?" It's Michael's turn to be surprised now.

"I have to admit, when I first saw you and offered a deal to you, I didn't have high hopes, especially when you agreed to my deal without any second thoughts. But... now you've shown extreme promise, you are the second to surprise me this much."

"Second? Who's the first then?"

If Demiurge had a face, he'd be smiling. That's what Michael was feeling right now.

"Considering your talent, you'll meet her one day. She's still on the hunt."

"Hunting who?"

"Me"

In a large empty area of the magical junkyard stands Michael, wearing a simple black shirt and black pants.

Surrounding him are melted and frozen parts of ancient tech that he's been practicing with his magic.

Michael falls to his knees, gasping for air.

"Mana sickness, you'll get used to it. This is probably your first time losing so much mana in one instance, but this is pitiful, a few blasts of fire and ice manipulation and your already this tired."

"Ahhh... *pants*... sorry this is efficient but they're too powerful, my mana can't keep up. And without the magic focus I'm having a hard time controlling the spells."

Demiurge sighs 'maybe not really a genius, just lucky'

"Stand up, try again." Demiurge commands and Michael stands up.

He raises his right hand, which has slight burns, and he raises his left hand, which is shaking from the cold, results of not being able to connect to magic easily. 'I'd kill to be wearing a magic focus right now. But that Mk. 2 would probably short-circuit due to the potency of these spells.'

Michael stretches his body then he holds his right wrist.

"Again."

Suddenly fire appears on Michael's palm, just the same size as the fire he conjured earlier when he was wearing the magic focus, but there is a clear difference, the fire earlier was orange while the fire now is pure blue.

"It still surprises me how beautiful it is."

"Yes, fire that can melt steel. Now again"

Michael looks at one of the makeshift targets he set up for practice.

He fires the small ball of extremely hot fire towards the target, engulfing its top part with quick spreading fire.

"How can this spell's fire spread faster than the shit spell?"

"Magic" Demiurge answers immediately.

Michael gasps for air again, his mana pool has been dry for a while now and every time he replenished it, he immediately returned to practicing, which was very taxing on his body.

"Use ice now."

Michael raises his left and ice rimes his left hand. He swipes his hand in a slashing movement and an impossibly sharp ice dart flies through the air, piercing the still burning target. Steam covers the target, as the ice and fire are trying to kill one another.

"Your comprehension is extremely monstrous" Demiurge praises Michael a little but immediately adds a complaint. "But your mana pool is small, and your mana control needs work."

Michael nods, as his two hands are shaking from the pain, thankfully the damage isn't permanent.

*ring* *ring*

"Hmmm what is that incessant noise?"

"OH! It's starting" Michael picks up a pair of clean clothes from a pack nearby. He rips them and fixes them over his slightly damaged arms.

"What's starting?"

"The daily trash dump! I need to find more stuff to sell."

"Hmmm, humans and your pitiful biological needs."

"Fiends don't need to eat?"

"Yes, we mostly do it for the delicacy of eating, but we have no need for food."

Once Michael is done with basic medical procedures, he stands up and immediately runs towards a direction deeper in the junkyard.

"This place reeks of mixed mana, there is a lot, albeit the lowest quality. I'm still baffled on how you managed to maintain 98% mana purity."

Michael runs through the junkyard with ease and quickness, his familiarity quickly showing. In the sky, more than 20 flying ships designed to carry defective items, such as everyday appliances and magical items, fly over towards another area. Michael immediately switches direction, following the ships.

After a while of continuous running, suddenly more people are appearing, running towards the same area as Michael.

"Tsk... it seems, I have company."

"Hey look! It's that shitty Michael" a group of scavengers lead by a huge man, is running behind Michael.

"I see you have some interesting friends."

"Not friends."

"Sarcasm"

"What?"

"... Never mind."

In a few minutes, more groups that are going towards the flying ship's area appears. Michael frowns, as a large majority of them are staring at him with large interest. In the poor district, Michael is very famous; this is because of two things. The first is his shitty talent, despite being 20 his mana pool is equivalent to an 11 year's old. Second is because he is the only accomplished artificer in the slums, despite only learning everything from the low quality government mandated classes and his scavenged old books.

A lot of thuggish groups and gangs have long since wanted to take him under their wing, but he has refused all their offers. The only reason he's alive is because he was worth too much, and while he didn't join any groups, he gladly repaired the equipment of other gang members for a fair fee. And the other reason is because...

A gang member suddenly charges Michael.

*woosh*

Before the thug could attack Michael, he was sent flying with broken teeth and an ice blade stuck in his shoulder. Thankfully, the man will only be unconscious for a day, not dead.

... he's ruthless.

Michael's sharp eyes stare at the dozens of gangs and groups running behind, besides and in front of him, they feel his contained ferocity.

"I told you, I wasn't weak"

"Beating an untrained thug with no magical training is not proof that you're strong. But I am impressed by your survival skills."

"Don't finish judging me yet, these are the small fry. You'll notice that there are a lot of diamonds in the rough here."

Demiurge goes silent and says.

"Well if they're good enough, we can try to recruit them."

"I didn't expect you to like allies, I thought you'd be more solitary."

"It helps to have a few meat-shields for just in case."

Michael chuckles.

"Yes! We're here!"

On the distance the ships drop the new cargo of defective items and the quiet and usually dead junkyard comes to life once more.